Quotes by Teaching Looking back on a 30-year teaching career full of rewards and prizes, somehow I can't completely believe that I spent my time on earth institutionalized; I can't believe that centralized schooling is allowed to exist at all as a gigantic indoctrination and sorting machine, robbing people of their children. Did it really happen? Was this my life? God help me. John Taylor Gatto teachingbelievechildren It was never factually true that young people learn to read or do arithmetic primarily by being taught these things. These things are learned, but not really taught at all. Over-teaching interferes with learning, although the few who survive it may well come to imagine it was by an act of teaching. John Taylor Gatto learningteachingpeople Teaching is a function, not a profession. Anything with something to offer can teach. John Taylor Gatto professionfunctionteaching I've noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my twenty-five years of teaching - that schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders. John Taylor Gatto teachingbelieveschool Is it any wonder that Socrates was outraged at the accusation he took money to teach? Even then, philosophers saw clearly the inevitable direction the professionalization of teaching would take, that of pre-empting the teaching function, which, in a healthy community, belongs to everyone. John Taylor Gatto healthycommunityteaching In our secular society, school has become the replacement for church, and like church it requires that its teachings must be taken on faith. John Taylor Gatto takenteachingschool They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe uselessteachingeducation Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. John W. Gardner flowerteachingeducation Education of youth is not a bow for every man to shoot in that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave to Ulysses. John Milton teachingteachermen As you get older, you have to force yourself to have new dreams. For instance, I've been flying for 37 years, but now teaching others to fly is interesting for me. Sometimes you have to find new angles on life to keep you interested, like sharing successes and inspiring and helping others. John Travolta helping-othersteachingdream The calculus was the first achievement of modern mathematics and it is difficult to overestimate its importance. I think it defines more unequivocally than anything else the inception of modern mathematics; and the system of mathematical analysis, which is its logical development, still constitutes the greatest technical advance in exact thinking. John von Neumann teachingmaththinking It is among children only, and as children only, that you will find medicine for your healing and true wisdom for your teaching. John Ruskin teachinghealingchildren I go to a church here in New Jersey that is just a very exciting place, and I just love to be there on Sunday morning - I just sit there in a pew with my wife, that's all I do, but I'm very much a part of that congregation. We've got a fantastic rector,she brings in people from places like the United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota, where you've got good teaching, and our people are being introduced to great material and they really respond. They're able to believe without crossing their fingers. And I think that's a real step forward. John Shelby Spong realteachingmorning Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church. John Templeton optimisticchurchteaching I served for 42 years on the board of trustees of the largest Presbyterian seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and we had brilliant people - teachers and students both-but they did not come up with many new concepts. They weren't invited to come up with new concepts. Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church. John Templeton optimisticteachingteacher A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive. John W. Gardner teachingleadershiphope The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else. John W. Gardner teachingeducationschool Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs. John Ruskin teachingliteraturecomplaining See that your children be taught, not only the labors of the earth, but the loveliness of it. John Ruskin teachingsciencechildren The history of science teaches only too plainly the lesson that no single method is absolutely to be relied upon, that sources of error lurk where they are least expected, and that they may escape the notice of the most experienced and conscientious worker. John William Strutt errorsteachingscience«8990919293949596979899»
